Speaker Replacement

Author: Slayer

6x9's and 6.5's:

After hours on mine, and cracking one of the grills I figured it out.

Okay, first thing you do is go to the trunk, and disconnect the leads, just pull on them, straight down, then go inside, fold down the rear seat and start pulling at the trim right above the trunk space, basically the whole carpet piece with the grills intact will peel up, DON'T PULL AT THE CARPET! But in order to remove that piece you must unscrew one screw on each side under the rear window. It's a black screw, when you remove that, the whole trim will come off, including the seal for the window, just pull it forward enough to get the carpet piece with the grills out. It's a real bitch to put this back.

Once you get that off, there will be four screws holding the speaker down, 3 will come out, but the last one will be impossible to reach. The only way to get it is with some sockets and a bent Alan wrench to access it, there is no clearance whatsoever (some suggest a right angle screwdriver, or a socket set with screwdriver bits).

I recommend getting the pioneer 3 way TS-A6959s. They are 79.00 a pair at REX audio.

Wal-Mart sells a discontinued model. Just go to REX and tell them Wal-Mart has these for 69.00, and they should knock the price down. Put the speakers in, and around the plastic corners put some foam to eliminate vibrations, then put it back together. The connecters will not fit in the new speakers, so get creative with some wire.

Might as well do the front too, but you will have to make a wooden template (Editor's note: you can re-use the front speaker brackets by carefully drilling out the weld spots that hold the speakers in place). To get the front speakers out, open the door, take the screws out near the hinge, and the one under the handle that opens the door, and the 3 in the little pocket by the arm rest. The trim should just pop off, just pull it, it should come off quite easily. To make the template take the backing off the old speakers and cut a piece of wood to the same dimensions, and cut a hole for the magnet (See editors note above) also put some foam or something around the screws to prevent vibration.

Might as well make leads for input of an amp: Get the Sony 6.5 front Wal-Mart. Good price good speaker: 6.5s in the front , 6 by 9s in the back.

Trust me, once you replace these, the sound system sounds like what it should be, better than those crappy 15 watt pieces of trash. Get an amp too, the head unit blows, 500 watts 4 channel should be fine.

Sorry for the misspellings and such, I'm not proofreading this, LOL

As for the tweeters:

I went with Polk Audio. They came together with crossovers and 6.5" for the doors. The tweeters were a bit of a pain. These are the steps.

Pry tweeter assembly from dash.

Remove tweeter speaker only from that assembly.

Poke your finger through the crappy paper just for kicks.

Push out original grill mesh from plastic assembly.

There are tiny nubs inside assembly... scrape these off.

The Polk tweeter assembly will now fit perfectly into the original Subaru collar and into the dash. Do not put in dash yet.

Get a plumbers helper. You know... those long pincer things to pick things up from tight places.

Remove panel that is off the floor and right in front of the door. This will give you a bit more room and make it easier to see what is going on.

Shove your plumbers helper down the hole in the dash. Hopefully you will see it appear near the floor. This can be tricky. There is a lot of crap stuffed in the dash.

Tape your speaker wire to the end of the plumbers helper and snake it up through the tweeter opening in the dash

Make your connection to your tweeter (make sure your collar and tweeter assembly is in place and the wire is threaded through it BEFORE you make your weld)

Snap assembly back into dash.

Rejoice... the hardest part is over.

Run your wire to your crossover, wherever that may be. Mine is right under my head unit, which is a bit of a pain. It has been suggested to put the crossover in a more accessible place.